Snapchat had signed up more US users for its app than its rival Instagram has since the beginning of the year, but new data shows those figures are quickly disappearing.

Instagram received 62% of new user sign-ups globally in August 2017, while Snapchat received 38%. Instagram’s global lead over Snapchat reflects the company's concerted efforts to appeal to users abroad. Additionally, its parent Facebook’s large global user base of over 2 billion monthly users likely also played a role in Instagram’s leadership. On the other hand, Snap has largely shied away from growing its user base in less developed markets where data connections may not be as strong. Fifty-six percent of Snapchat’s daily users in Q2 2017 came from outside of the US, while just 24% came from its Rest of World region, and the remaining 20% came from Europe.

Snapchat's signup advantage looks poised to disappear soon. Though Snapchat held leadership over Instagram in US signups in August, its slowing user growth is evident in the downward trend in the proportion of US signups. Snapchat’s percentage of new-user sign ups started decelerating meaningfully in September 2016, which is likely because Instagram Stories first launched the prior month. Snapchat added just 15 million users daily users from Q4 2016 to Q2 2017, while Instagram Stories added 100 million daily users this year alone. Snapchat could accelerate user growth by increasingly building out unique features not found on Instagram.

Snapchat can still raise engagement among existing users to pitch itself to advertisers. Though slowing user growth may remain an issue for Snapchat, because of Instagram’s mimicking, Snapchat can still create new ways for users to interact and build out its Discover section to keep users in-app for longer periods of time. Here at FDMC on a local level, we have seen strong declines of people using Snapchat and steady increase of engagement on Instagram. This reflects those national study figures as being very accurate.